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Greenly, CO: Trustee’s Office Pulls Ads After Unfavorable Editorial
June 07, 2005
PEN USA is disturbed by the situation surrounding The Greenly Tribune newspaper, a public trustee, and pulled advertising that resulted in a lawsuit.
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The newspaper printed an editorial this past February by the Tribune’s staff which suggested that the trustee’s office – which handles paperwork for public mortgage refinancing and foreclosures—is obsolete and eliminating the office could save the state money.
Two months after the story appeared, the trustee’s office stopped putting legal notices in the Tribune, and instead put their advertisements and notices in the weekly newspaper Windsor Beacon. According to the Tribune’s publisher, Jim Elsberry, in an Associated Press article, the loss of the trustee’s office legal ads cost the newspaper between $400,000 and $500,000 a year.
In response to this, The Greenly Tribune sued public trustee Mary Hergert, accusing her of withholding the advertising in retaliation for the editorial, which, it claimed, was in violation of both the First Amendment and fair trade practices. In the lawsuit, which was filed on May 31 in U.S. District Court in Denver, the newspaper seeks damages, attorney’s fees and a judge’s order preventing something like this from reoccurring.
Although Hergert says she moved to the Windsor Beacon because they gave her a better price and better technology, Elsberry contends that he offered Hergert both a lower price and better technology and she still refused to place ads in the Tribune. For this reason, Elsberry believes the ad-pulling was in direct relation to the free speech exercised by the editorial board when writing their piece in February.
“Thanks to First Amendment rights, a public official cannot punish a newspaper for its editorial content,” Elsberry said in the AP article. “After you get through the smoke and mirrors, that’s exactly what Mary Hergert is doing here, and that’s wrong.”
PEN USA hopes that Ms. Hergert will rethink her decision to never advertise in The Greenly Tribune, since it sets a precedent of silence: if newspapers are afraid to offend their advertisers with their editorials or new stories, will anyone ever receive real opinions or news? This and situations like this have the potential to freeze free speech, and thus PEN USA supports The Greenly Tribune in their lawsuit.
(source: http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/news.aspx?id=15393)
Recommended Action:
Write Mary Hergert urging her to change her decision not to advertise with The Greenly Tribune.
Mary Hergert
c/o Weld County Public Trustee’s Office
809 9th Street
Greeley, CO 80631
Phone:
(970) 352-4365
Fax:
(970) 352-5091